The Politically Inclined Heretic comments on political and cultural news events on a daily or almost-daily basis from a thoughtful nonpartisan perspective.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Unbiased Judging

"Today's opinion requires state and federal judges simultaneously to act as political scientists (why did candidate X win the election?), economists (was the financial support disproportionate?), and psychologists (is there likely to be a debt of gratitude?)," - as quoted from The Washington Post

Um. No. Justice Kennedy is more right than Chief Justice John Roberts. If a judge is hearing a case and one of the parties in the case contributed a lot of money to the judge's campaign, the judge's ability to render an impartial verdict in any given case has been compromised.

If there is any problem with Justice Kennedy's decision (and there is a big one) it is that he didn't go far enough. Judges must specifically be prohibited from hearing cases involving a parties that contributed to their campaigns.

Truly comprehensive reform, however, would require state amendments that remove the selection of judges from the electoral process.

About Me

I'm a college graduate with a B.A. in political science and a minor in journalism who worked for a local newspaper.
As my title suggests, I'm a political heretic with moderately conservative to a moderately conservative perspective though I have a great deal of respect for and adherence to the libertarian and radically centrist points of view as well.
If you wanted a breakdown politically, you could say I'm slightly right of center on foreign policy (with a strong affinity with the realist school of thought), slightly left of center on the cultural issues, and probably dead center on fiscal issues and the entitlements. But this is not entirely accurate either. Sometimes I go left and right at the same time on the same issue.
I am an independent republican (small "r") who has voted for Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Green Party candidates who has voted for candidates from the Republican, Democratic and third parties.